Cruise emergency
Yeah, god damn it, open up the cruise industry again, because how could that possibly be at all risky in the midst of a pandemic?
The state of Florida is suing the Biden administration to reopen the cruise industry “immediately” and allow cruises to “resume safely,” Florida’s governor and attorney general announced Thursday.
“Safely” how? A cruise ship is a small place where thousands of people are packed together like tuna in a can.
“We don’t believe the federal government has the right to mothball a major industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data. And I think we have a good chance for success,” Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference at the Port of Miami.
What do we mean by “major industry” here? It’s certainly not major in the sense of crucial for life. It’s not comparable to agriculture and shipping of food and other necessities and health care and housing. It’s “major” in the sense that a lot of money flies around, and in the sense that the ships are hulking monstrosities that do environmental damage all over the planet, but other than that – I don’t see it.
DeSantis said that tens of thousands of Floridians depend on the “viability of the cruise industry for their livelihoods, for their jobs, their ability to feed their families.”
Just barely. Most of the jobs are shit jobs, featuring very hard work for very mediocre pay.
“based on very little evidence and very little data”
Evidence for what? That… Covid-19 exists? That it spreads more easily in a confined space? There’s quite a bit of evidence for both of those things.
And I rather doubt that many of those working onboard are from Florida either. I’ve been on two cruises (and my mother in law loves them) and spotting white Western staff is pretty rare. Most staff I encountered were from South East Asia, and a few from Eastern Europe. The photographer was British.
I think it’s certainly a mistake to open the cruise industry – at least to unvaccinated passengers and crews – at this point.
The cruise industry thinks it’s great at controlling infection, but it’s used to rotavirus, spread by germs on surfaces (go on a cruise and you’ll see every surface being wiped down all the time and every room and corridor features hand sanitizer), not coronavirus which is spread by air.
Arcadia, I’ve only been on two cruises myself with Holland America, and the vast majority of the workers on the ship were from Indonesia. We talked with a few and found they have to serve for most of a year away from their home and get little time off the ship during their stint. But it pays enough for it to be worth it to them.
As for Florida’s interest, while the ships depart from Florida and there’s some hotel nights spend there and airline travel to get to there, it’s not nearly the money machine that Disney World and the the like are. I’m betting that DeSantis is hoping for some dark money to come his way for doing a favor for the cruise industry.
My husband and I went on a river cruise on the Elbe; their workers were mostly German and Czech. But this wasn’t an ocean cruise, and we started in Prague and ended in Berlin. And it wasn’t great; I wanted to see museums and parks, and neat science stuff, and the tour took us to church after church after church. It was kinda nice to see Luther’s church, but after a while, they really do all just look like old buildings.
It’s interesting that the workers on Holland America cruises are mostly Indonesian, because that was their one colony – used to be called (by Anglophones) the Dutch East Indies. Not Dutch at all, obvs.
The house across the alley from me used to belong to the CEO of Holland America. It probably has a pretty clear view of the pier where the cruise ships tie up.
There’s also the Dutch West Indies.
I was estranged from my birth father for much of my life, and relied on my mother’s recollection of his history. She said that his family hailed from the Dutch West Indies. I naively thought that might have meant the possibility of Dutch ancestry, including explaining my unusual last name (I believe I know all the people in the world who share it). When I reconnected with my birth father many years later, I learned that his family was from the Danish West Indies, not Dutch, forcing some mental gear shifting regarding how I thought of myself.
(My ancestors from the West Indies were likely slaves, and the whole concept of pride of ancestry is fraught, so I don’t bother wondering about Danish ancestry except in order to explain the name, which is still a mystery.)
Oh yes, I always forget about them.
Had to look it up. The Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.
Sardines in a can!
and, not so incidentally DeSantis and his orcs also make any vaccine ‘discrimination’ illegal in Florida. Not that I’m ready for a cruise, but FL-visiting will not be the safest available.
Saw the post title and thought it was about Scientology. Damn. :P
I had to look up part of it as well. Those three are the “Caribbean Netherlands” or the “BES islands”, which, together with Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten, make up the “Dutch West Indies” aka the “Dutch Caribbean”. They used to have travel advertisements for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, the “ABC islands”, when I was young and still thought I had some connection there. I didn’t realize until now there were islands in the group other than the ABC ones.
All these names begin to make me think of the Judean People’s Front.
They’re nicer names though.
I was familiar with the Dutch West Indies and have even been there (Aruba). They’re in an interesting situation, being tiny little Caribbean islands still part of Holland in a way – the kids get to go to university in Holland, adults get Dutch welfare, etc. People speak Dutch, English, and Papiamento, which is a creole. They exist at the intersection of oil and tourism. Aruba is chockablock with hotels.
I had to look up the Danish West Indies, though. I wasn’t familiar with them mostly because they don’t exist anymore as such. The US bought Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix in 1917 for 25 million bucks, and now they’re the US Virgin Islands. I have never been there, or I’d probably have known this before.
Curiously, they remain the only the US territory where they drive on the left. Although Denmark has been driving on the right for many years, it was still driving on the left when the sale occurred.